A Possible Treatment for Malaria

Mark 1:31

And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.”

Malaria is caused by infection by parasites called plasmodia. It is still a serious disease, killing over one million people in 1998. Malaria is most serious in developing countries where modern drugs that fight malaria are often hard to get. Now a biologist at the University of Washington may have come up with a simple, inexpensive solution.

Plasmodia live in the bloodstream of the victims of malaria. Because they feed on blood, their bodies become loaded with iron‑rich molecules. Biologist, Henry Lai, found that a weak, oscillating, magnetic field in the lab causes the iron‑rich plasmodia to begin spinning. As the magnetic field continues, the plasmodia bodies spin fast enough to burst apart and die. Lai suggests that a coil of wire on the ceiling and another on the floor of a room plugged into a power supply could set up a magnetic field strong enough to kill the plasmodia in the blood streams of infected people. He believes that malaria could be kept under control if a person spent 12 hours a day in such a room. However, his theory has not yet been tested in the field.

Malaria has been a problem since sin came into the world. It may even be the cause of some of the fevers we read about in the Bible. When our Creator made us, He gave us the intelligence to treat the diseases that would result from our sin. However, modern medicine cannot heal us spiritually. Only God’s Son, Jesus Christ, can do that when we trust in His sacrifice on the cross for us.

Author: Paul A. Bartz

Prayer: Dear Father, I thank You for healing me by the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Ref: Discover, 7/00, p. 24, “Magnets Against Malaria.” Photo: The mosquito Anopheles stephensi is among the blood-feeding insects that can be infected by a species of Plasmodium. Courtesy of CDC. (PD)